Critic Reviews

If “Palestine 36” is indeed a filmic history lesson, it’s one worth sitting through. That a traditionally realized historical drama with impeccable production value and consistently effective performances centers the Palestinian perspective makes for an essential endeavor.

This is a story of national identity and resistance with contemporary resonance, but it’s also a classic genre movie, its historical tapestry populated by a strong ensemble of screen stars as well as impressive newcomers.

Palestine ‘36 is at its most moving in the scenes of archival footage, and most provocative as an illustration of how England’s imperial tactics of pitting national groups against each other and terrorizing civilians (characters refer to similar approaches India and Ireland) became the template for Israeli’s ongoing military domination of the Palestinian territories. The argument is unlikely to change fixed hearts and minds, but it is difficult to ignore how familiar it seems.

The Palestinian submission for international picture at the incoming Academy Awards is a handsome, old-fashioned production that, even when it is telling us things we didn’t know, confirms all our worst suspicions about the British colonial experience in the Holy Land.

Palestine 36 is beautifully shot and researched, and peppered with historical touches.

The dynamics are rarely simply drawn, and if the film’s default mode is miniseries-expository, there are a few striking stylistic flourishes.

As overdue tales of history go, Palestine ‘36 (currently one of the last films with access to its real-world locations) is certainly more of a blunt instrument than a novelistic endeavor. But its broad strokes and rooted passions easily earn their place, and deserve to inspire more such stories.

It works if you are really paying attention to the pageturner storytelling and have the spatial intelligence to proactively connect plants to payoffs.

None of these characters quite flares passionately into life but all are persuasively portrayed, and it’s a vehement reminder of what doesn’t get taught in British schools.

At its best it cuts between historical footage and new material and achieves the awed emotional resonance of connecting history with the present.